


Traditions

by Ceemonster



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Han and Ben only mentioned, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5952687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceemonster/pseuds/Ceemonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old ways were disappearing and even she, the last Princess of House Organa, had trouble clinging to them.</p><p>This one was different.</p><p>This one was personal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traditions

**Author's Note:**

> A quick look into how Leia mourns Han. The idea struck me and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote my first fic in over five years and my first ever for Star Wars. You'll find a few EU references but I tried to make it as canon compliant as possible.

Countless traditions had fallen to the wayside, collecting like the dust of the long gone planet in the dark recesses of her people’s memories. They didn’t fit with the new ways; life on the run, short on creds and time and patience, made it difficult to observe the majority of old customs even after the Emperor had been defeated and the New Republic was taking shape.  
  
Longs dresses of flowing white fabric, while suitable for the Senate, had no place in bases or on battlefields where blood and dirt and grease clung to everything and plentiful knobs and switches caught and tore and ripped. (Never mind running in the blasted things.) It was hard to return to the illusion of unsoiled peace and hope after all she’d seen and done.

(She was careful to always have _something_ white represented in her wardrobe when in session but after the Military Disarmament Act passed, the token was purposely resigned. There was difference between pacifism and plain stupidity.)  
  
Founding Day’s fireworks faded quicker and quicker, evolving into Remembrance Day and the Gingerbell Blossom Festival felt ridiculous without any of the celebrated flowers on hand. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen a toy nerf stuffed with sweets, waiting to be broken open by a child or the colorful swirl of dancers’ skirts, revealing the intricate steps of the Reel dancers’ bare feet. The art of grass painting would be lost to history and never would she eat a starblossom for prosperity and peace in the first hours of each new year.  
  
The old ways were disappearing and even she, the last Princess of House Organa had trouble clinging to them.  
  
This one was different.

This one was personal.  
  
It had been a week. Seven cycles of the sun and moon, chasing each other through the sky. Seven days in which she’d kept vigil, donning the dark blue of mourning as she always did after particularly costly battles, though this time it lingered past her usual one-day observance.  
  
(The actual time was different; would always be different but it had been more than three decades since she’d been able to tell what exact minute it would have been in Aldera.)

Seven days since she’d lost Han. Seven days since their son - her son, her baby boy - had pulverized the remaining pieces of her already fragmented life.

Seven days since the searing pain pierced both their chests, shredding multiple hearts in one quick strike.

(She’d felt both her boys lose themselves in that moment, one to Death, one to Shadow, leaving her even more alone in the universe than she could ever conceive was possible.)

But grief was not something to be worn too long by figureheads; their people wanting, needing hope to radiate from their leaders and tomorrow the garb would return to her closet to be replaced by the drab olive of her flightsuit once more.

Still, there was one thing she had yet to do.

Looking into the smooth reflective surface of the mirror took more effort than she’d expected.

It was one of the few luxury pieces that took up space in her otherwise spartan quarters. A gilded frame, dented and scratched with age, Han had returned from one of his trips to the Outer Rim after Yavin with it, wrapped in an old blanket for protection. She hadn’t understood at first; the very hint he’d thought her nothing but a vain girl swelling into anger before he’d shown her the small etchings on the back; a maker’s mark from one of the Guilds of Alderaan. A piece of home; something that would have hung on the walls the Palace, rescued by a smuggler from some junk shop and brought to the princess of a lost planet in attempt to soothe her pain.

How it managed to survive all these years, she couldn’t say. Luck. The Force. Divine intervention. The devotion of some very determined pilots who felt they needed to protect the piece as much as its owner. It’d managed to see more bases and battles than most of the soldiers she’d commanded.  

Pins were pulled and set along the surface of her bureau, allowing the waist-length twists to unfurl as she watched.

He’d always loved her hair.

He’d marveled at the length the first time he’d seen it unbound. A tradition, she’d told him. Alderaanian women from the Great Houses rarely cut their hair.

And rarer still, were the number of men allowed to touch it in such a state.

(She could count the number on one hand. Her father - her _real_ father, Bail - was the first. Han was the last.)

That had only added to his infatuation.

Elegant, intricate styles were always the first victim of their lust, taking precedence over the first pieces of clothing tossed aside. His grip was firm, holding on tight as if one more physical connection could melt them into one when pleasure mounted and the world fell away. In the afterglow, he’d run his fingers through it; the steady strokes lulling them both to sleep.

When she was sore and heavy with the weight of their son growing inside her, he would take time each evening to brush all the tangles from it, slow and careful, before braiding the soft, shining strands into a plain but serviceable single plait. 

Particularly long, trying days were soothed away with a massage that started at the base of her neck and worked its way to her temples. 

Once, he’d even weaved together a crown of wildflowers to set atop it, kissing her forehead as he laid it in place. 

(Ben had demanded a matching one and his father, chuckling, had complied.) 

She touched a single lock hanging against her cheek. 

Her husband was gone. 

(No matter how many times he’d left before, she _knew_ he would return eventually.) 

He wasn’t coming back now. No matter how hard she wished or cried or begged. 

Seven days.

It was time.

Steeling her nerves, Leia held the gaze of the wrinkled eyes in the mirror as she picked up the pair of shears and with a steady hand, laid them against the line of her jaw. 

A breath and an audible _snip_ and fine strands of brown and silver fluttered to the floor.


End file.
